Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.

It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.

I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.

And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I'd probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up.

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

You can't stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.

The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has — I'm not kidding.

Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.

Mothers are all slightly insane.

I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.

Anyway, I'm sort of glad they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will.

True success cannot be achieved until you have experienced failure

Have a scaffold erected in the square. We shall hang a traitor or two before dinner. And perhaps afterwards as well.

Chamber music - a conversation between friends.

It is through the idealism of youth that man catches sight of truth, and in that idealism he possesses a wealth which he must never exchange for anything else.

Look in the mirror and see who you are. Beautiful, you are.

Life is short, very short, and what are we doing here if not trying to become more generous and loving?

Divorce has been very, very good to me.

I dropped out of Reed College [Portland, Oregon] after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

A poem is this:/A nuance of sound/delicately operating/upon a cataract of sense/...the particulars/of a song waking/upon a bed of sound.

An overflow of good converts to bad.